no sound, save breathing
by EtherealCrescent
Summary: Emma's finally made her choice, now all that's left is to convince Hook of it.


**title**: no sound, save breathing  
**summary**: it's Emma's turn to convince Hook  
**pairing**: captain swan, emma x killian jones | hook  
**word count**: ~3900  
**rating**: NC-17/ R  
**genre**: angst/ romance/ smut  
**author's note**: haven't written anything in a little while but here have some of my fav combo: angst and smut :). (Also, this has been on tumblr for a few days now but I hadn't put anything up on in a long time sooo... also i may have edited it a little more than the one on tumblr bc i couldn't help myself)

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Finally he steps forward and his arms wrap around her. Emma feels a large weight fall off her shoulders.

"I just want you to be happy," Neal whispers in her ear, "Whatever you want."

Emma smiles small and just a little fragile. Something about Neal will always make her feel young, like she's still the care-free in love girl she once was. And a part of her will always remember that and most of her will always cherish it. But all of her remembers how it ended, how young had also meant naive for her.

It had taken so long— _too long—_, but Emma has finally come to terms with how they ended (how she can't exactly hate him for it, and can't exactly love him anymore either) and learned to love who she has become since, enough to let who she once was go.

_(And that was the key to it, really, that letting go of herself and the dreams that she use to have, was how she finally let go of him. She has new dreams now.)_

Emma holds on, reciprocates Neal's embrace and pretends she can't tell he's not hugging her as tightly as he'd like to.

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In the distance, blue eyes turn away.

He should have known, _did know_, it'd end up this way.

What a bloody fool he'd been to hope.

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Emma's been knocking for five minutes straight.

Hook's inside— she'd heard shuffling within when she'd first approached the locked door— and it'd taken her long enough to gather up the courage to come all the way here so she's not leaving.

She'd already had to turn away from Granny's Inn, after Tink had let her know that he'd left from there in a hurry hours before. It had only made sense that the only other place he'd go was his ship.

"Hook, open up," Emma says, tilting her head and listening closely, "It's me." The clarification is more than unnecessary, but she waits a few seconds to no avail anyway.

She rolls her eyes.

"Look, I know you're in there and if I want to get in you know I can."

It's probably an idle threat, Emma's not entirely sure, maybe she would break in if she absolutely had to at this point but after a moment or so the door inches open so neither of them will ever find out.

Hook stands just in the threshold, leaning against the frame and not quite looking at her. Half of him is still blocked by the wood.

"Swan" he says slowly, with a long suffering sigh, "What can I do for you?"

The tone that he uses makes her eyes narrow. Something about him seems… _off_, "Did you not hear me?," Emma asks, though she doesn't know why. She knows he had, "I've been knocking forever."

Still, he barely looks at her. "Have you?" Hook asks with a raise of his brows and a laugh. It's short, sharp and _wrong. _It's the closest to mocking he's ever been when speaking to her. "Must have missed it," he adds, indifferently.

Emma stiffens. It's such a small thing but his cool treatment of her (especially now after what she's figured out, especially after all the promises he's made her) is like a slap to the face. She doesn't take well to being given the cold shoulder (too many backs being turned on you can have that effect) and she knows that he _knows _this. She's always been an open book to him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He looks away from her and smiles (small and fake and brittle),"I'm sure I don't know what you're—

"_Don't—"_ Emma warns, effectively cutting him off. She stares at him hard enough that he has no choice but to turn and meet her eyes.

They hold each other's gazes. Both strong, both unmasked. They understand each other. She doesn't _need_ to say it because he already knows but she does anyway because she's just that serious.

"Don't start lying to me," she makes perfectly clear.

Slowly, Emma watches Hook work down a swallow. His lips pull into a thin line. He blinks and with his shoulder he pushes himself off of the door frame.

"I saw you," he answers simply, and Emma has no idea what he's even talking about but knows it's the truth. She's about to ask when he steps away from the door altogether, but it's somewhat shakily and it catches her attention. It is then that Emma sees the flask he's holding tight in his hand. A flask she hasn't seen him drink from in _weeks._

And as if to make it even more clear for her, he uses that moment to bring the flask to his lips and take a long deep gulp, turning and walking further inside. It's an invitation she guesses, if she wants to take it, but by the way he continues to walk away, he doesn't seem all that concerned if she follows him in or not, if she leaves him to his own devices and never comes back again.

Emma settles herself and steps in, shuts the door behind her.

What's waiting on the other side, she is completely unprepared for. His room is a wreck, the entirety of it torn apart. Hook, apparently unperturbed by the fact that someone must have broken in and decided to destroy the majority of his belongings, haggardly sits down in an old chair (one that he has to pick up and set upright in order to do so) obviously too tired to care about hiding it any longer.

She'd known almost immediately upon seeing him that something was wrong—but she can't quite put her finger on it—he doesn't seem upset, or even just hurt, at least not necessarily. Its deeper than that. It's in the shadows of his eyes, the set of his shoulders.

He seems—_lost_, she realizes (it's something that she's recognized in her own reflection one too many times) and by the looks of it—he's downing another deep drag from his flask- he is not too worried about ever being found again.

"Hook..." she says clearly—and maybe even a little gently because the way he's acting is honest to god scaring her— "What's wrong with you? What happened in here?"

He sighs, "Nothing that you should be concerning yourself with any longer love."

Emma pauses, "Any longer?"

Instead of answering her, his head tilts slightly to the side, strangely guarded and considering. _Distant. _And since when has Hook been distant with her?

"Why are you even here?" he asks finally, and its like a sharp pain in her gut because does he not want her here anymore? Is that why she shouldn't worry over him?

At once Emma remembers why she had come- finally come, _finally ready_, finally figured everything out, ready to take her leap of faith—and what was supposed to have happened.

_It isn't suppose to be like this. She should have known. She shouldn't have hoped—_

"Why aren't you with him?," Hook continues, blue gaze carefully focused on the spinning flask in his ringed fingers, "You should be starting your happily ever after," he says hollowly.

And this snaps her out of it.

"What? Why aren't I—?" Realization dawns, the water draining from her lungs. It isn't what she thought. He hasn't stopped wanting her like everyone always does. She isn't too late. Hook thinks that- Wait... Hook thinks,"—Were you _following _me?" she asks, incredulous.

"Does it really matter?" Hook shoots back at once.

And Emma wants to be furious. Wants to say yes, in fact, it does matter. Because he has _no business _following her or spying on her or acting like—well like a _fucking pirate_. But then that distracts her because it's frankly pretty hilarious except then it hits her what him following her earlier might have meant, what it may have looked like to him. Her and Neal, alone and secluded and talking in soft voices and ending in each other's arms.

It's no secret that things have died down and Emma has had time to think for once, to consider, and after almost marrying a guy— even if he had turned out to be a fake, a _terrifying _monster, and she'd had false memories to help her along— she'd still been ready. She'd been at least open to the idea of accepting love in a way she hadn't ever been before. And maybe Hook, maybe he might have thought, seeing her with Neal, that she'd finally made her choice.

And it wasn't him.

When she speaks again, her voice is much gentler now, "You shouldn't have followed me Hook. What's between me and Neal...," she searches for the right words, "It's always been complicated. What you saw... it was—"

His scoff is harsh and hurtful and it makes her pause because of how entirely self-directed it is, "You don't have to let me down easy love. I get it, " Hook says at once, "I'm— _you deserve better. _I was never the best choice. I never thought I was. I just—after so many years... you were, to me...," His brows furrow as he struggles to explain himself and then sighs again, "Lass I'd just hoped it'd be me," and he looks at her.

She can see him tense, can see the hurt manifest itself physically.

Hook wishes that he could find the words to explain to her what he means but they don't even exist. He loves her. But the only reason that he even uses the word love is because they haven't made up a stronger one for the depth of the feelings he has for her.

But Emma knows. She's seen it in his eyes. She's heard it in his voice when he struggles to speak to her, embarrassed and shy and hopeful. She's felt it in the gentle way he brushes her hair from her shoulders.

It'd taken her forever to be able to even believe it all and even longer to think about it without being afraid of what it meant.

Soon enough Hook looks away from her, distancing himself again, and Emma realizes that he's doing it because he believes she wants him to.

"It doesn't matter," he laughs, the self-deprecating smile once again gracing his face, "I'm sorry I've bothered you as long as I have. Sorry for getting in the way of true love."

Emma is speechless. This is not the same man that told her, _assured her_, that he would win her heart. This is the man he tries so hard to hide. The one who has had everything taken from him and been unable to stop it, who has had little reason to have hope and has done horrible things that he doesn't even try to deny. This is who had approached her and struggled, couldn't meet her eyes when he'd tried to tell her he knew what it felt like to lose hope and she can see it now; that he's broken and damaged and expecting no more than he has ever been allowed out of life— _nothing._

Looking at him, Emma knows, that she's fallen in love with all of him- with the arrogance, and ear to ear splitting grins, with the (and what does he like to call himself again?) dashing rapscallion as well as the man so lost, so hurt that he's become accustom to accepting it.

All of him is everything that she wants.

"The only getting in the way you've done, you're doing right now Killian."

When he looks up at her, it is with shock and disbelief in his eyes, a vulnerable sort of hope that slowly fades as he let's what she's said sink in. She watches the doubt bloom as if from a rotten seed, and quickly it is followed by a spark of anger.

"I thought we'd agreed we wouldn't lie to each other Swan," he accuses.

The clipped, seriousness of his tone makes her mind up for her. Emma only hesitates for a moment (she's always been much more of a show than a tell kind of girl anyway) and then she has closed the distance between them in a few short steps. She doesn't give him much time to figure it out. A leap a faith, she thinks, staring down in to his fast widening, icy blue eyes.

And then she reaches for his stubbled jaw, hand trembling, and leans down to place a firm, and what she hopes is reassuring, kiss to his lips.

Hook barely leans into it. His eyes close and his brows furrow, but he barely kisses her back before she has pulled away. It stings a little, his reluctance, but she reminds herself that it's not because he doesn't care but because he can't grasp how she could care about him (this of course, stings a little too and yet really just motivates her more).

Emma lingers there as the crease between his brows fade, as his eyes blink open, confusion and so many other emotions burning in them. She feels the warmth of his breath against her—he's breathing hard— and leans her forehead against his.

"I choose you," she says just as firm as her lips had been against his—an extra push—making up for having taken so long to realize the truth. "I think maybe I chose you a long time ago."

And it takes him a longer time than she'd have thought it would, before his hand buries itself in her hair and he drags her mouth back to his with enough strength that they nearly topple out of the chair he's seated in. He groans into her mouth, kissing her fully, deeply, and in addition to the bitterness of rum, she can taste longing on his tongue.

He kisses her in a way that makes her dizzy and it isn't until they can both no longer think or breathe— she is grasping at his collar and he's still lost but in an entirely new way— and she has found her way on to his lap that he finally manages to say anything at all.

"And you're sure," he asks, kissing a stripe down her jaw, "that this isn't just another one time thing?"

She answers unthinkingly, reaching for one of the few buttons that clasp close his shirt because they have been asking to be undone forever, "I'm sure," but she is halted unexpectedly when his hand grabs hers. She glances back to find him having stopped, he's looking her dead in the eyes.

"Good," he intones, "Because if I'm being honest, and you know that I am, I'm not quite so sure that I could survive it love."

It's sobering and the sincerity of what he's said makes Emma's stomach knot and her heart skip a beat. He'd rather never have her than have her only on false pretenses, rather never know what it is like to be loved by her than forced to only remember it. He wants it to be real.

Slowly and with purpose, Emma takes the hand grabbing hers, slowly smoothes it down the length of her, down her neck and over the curve of her breasts, down her side.

It's intimate and more than they've ever done and entirely initiated by her and Hook shifts a little beneath her, exhales a sharp breath and grips her hip tight in his hand when she lets it go.

"Well then its a good thing we'll never have to find out," she answers silkily, and it's the first time since she'd arrived that Emma gets to see him actually grin.

From that point on neither of them hold back. The way he bites and tugs at her lips when he kisses her, breathes her in, or the way he shrugs out of his shirt carelessly ,smoothly, when she pulls it from his shoulders. The ache between Emma's thighs (she has wanted him so long, much longer than she has let herself want any more from him) make her want to clench her legs together to ease the tension but since Hook is fit so nicely between them, she instead settles for rolling her hips into his lap.

Hook, for all that he's worth, holds her down and makes sure she feels _exactly _what she's doing to him. And when she's had more than enough, Emma scoots further back towards his knees and reaches for the laces of his trousers, pulling and tugging until she has him, hard and thick, within her fingers. And it only takes one long stroke before Hook (with a slightly broken gasp) has jerked her up and off his lap to peel her jeans down her legs.

Hook runs his namesake down the back of Emma's thigh with a husky, "I don't hear any complaints about me using it now," before placing a wet kiss, hard and full of promise, just against her bare hip bone. Emma shudders, mind growing fogged.

She wants his mouth on her— wants everything that Hook has to offer and knows that he's willing to offer her anything— but right at that moment she's feeling more than just a little impatient. She'll have _that_ later, and _more _(and probably again after that) but right now—

Without much warning to either of them— Emma moves forward, straddling and clutching his shoulders, finding him hard and heavy and waiting, and with a tilt of her hips she catches him inside, sinks down until she can't anymore with a throaty moan. Hook can't help but groan deep and long, grip her hip and drive them both the rest of the way home.

The surprise that flashes on his face Emma would've filed away as something to never let him live down (she's an open book but he sure as hell hadn't seen that coming) except then he's already moving, not one to waste time she sees, a sharp jolt of his hips that Emma can feel down to her toes, and she can't quite think so clearly after that.

At first they move slow and with intent, aching to feel every hint, every moment, as Hook rocks upwards and Emma rolls her hips down and they meet somewhere blissful and breathtaking right in the middle. But it isn't long before rhythm and skill become nothing more than obstacles and passion and blinding need replace them.

Hook's arm locks around her waist, his face buried in her throat and Emma is all but dragging herself against him. She can feel her heart soaring in her chest as Killian moans and groans— anything but quiet— into the hollow of her neck, declaring things that she hadn't been ready for just a few hours before, perpetually praising her even now.

He struggles to say her name and gulps down what might have been a curse, "Lass... I— _please_, I only need to hear it once."

And her insides twist, she knows exactly what he's asking for. Something she's never really said without fear or pain in her heart, or tears in her eyes. Words she's said trying to hold on to a dying son or explain the anguish of why it hurt so much when Neal left her.

It shouldn't be so hard when she knows that it's the truth but she's always known that once it's said she can never go back.

... But the thing is— with startling clarity, Emma knows that she doesn't want to go back.

Not ever again.

"I love you," she whispers, soft in his ear, the words taboo falling from her lips. She waits, a beat, a breath, and still the terror that normally follows never hits her. The dam is broken, and it feels wonderful for once to have opened her heart of her own choice, at her own pace, that she can't seem to contain it anymore so she says it again... and again...

And the noise he makes—

It tightens the coil inside her so much it nearly snaps. And then she's not exactly sure of everything that's happening but she's being lifted and the room is spinning around her and then her back is hitting his bed.

He's over her, body pressed against hers, kissing her like he's never going to get to again, breathing her name like a prayer— or maybe like a curse, she doesn't think he cares— and his fingers are on her, just above where his thrusts have gone a little wild, circling, fast and frantic, as if needing her to come. And it isn't until she realizes that _he does _because Hook is completely _wrecked_, teetering on edge, and _struggling _to hold out and it's _all because of her (all because she loves him and its more than he can take to finally have her) _that her orgasm crashes down around her, blinding and shattering, and drags her under.

Emma might have said his name in the moment, she doesn't know, isn't sure of anything except this feeling and she's moaning— and clenching— and fluttering around him—

Hook's head falls into her shoulder, and with a hoarse groan his hips jerk, try to keep moving, try to draw it out, unwilling to stop, stuttering until he has nothing left to give.

They both lay there, catching their breath and coming down and Emma starts waiting on the other shoe to drop. She had been so one hundred percent sure, ready to love, ready to _be loved_, but she's still not perfect. She still expects her walls to build around her on their own.

And perhaps that's why they work, she thinks, because it isn't until after Hook places a soft kiss to her shoulder that she stops worrying about reality setting in.

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"Are you still with me love?" Hook asks.

Emma smiles (small and not so fragile at all) and tells him yes.

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